


Hand in Hand

by napkins



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napkins/pseuds/napkins
Summary: Forced to chaperone a social with Miss Pentangle's academy, Hecate Hardbroom believes nothing can make the night any worse than it already is. A poorly-made potion is about to prove her wrong.





	Hand in Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jibrailis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/gifts).



Mildred Hubble. It had to be Mildred Hubble’s fault. She and her friends were the only ones that could possibly come up with a mishap that resulted in a spiked punch that at first had only smoked, calling her attention as well as that of Miss Pentangle - Pippa, she had to remember. She’d clasped her so warmly in the entrance hall, causing the students to titter the way they always did when they shouldn’t, and Hecate had felt her cheeks heat, hoping none of them noticed it or the way the handshake she’d followed up the hug with for the sake of trying to keep the whole thing back on a formal track had lingered longer than most other physical contact she allowed. Pippa’s hand had been warm in hers, the way it was now. At the thought, Hecate’s hand twitched, but didn’t move from Pippa’s hold, bringing her attention back to the situation at hand, as it were.

She turned, pulling Pippa with her as she scanned the hall for any sign of guilty faces - with the way the punch cauldron had exploded, splashing over Pippa and Hecate, the guilty party was surely watching and trying to hide from her. Whether one of her students or Pippa’s - even if her money was on Mildred Hubble’s coven at the center of it all, with Pippa as their headmaster, Pentangle’s girls were surely adventurous and spirited and something like this would not be beyond their purview. 

“Hecate, wai- where are you going?” It was quite a bit harder to stalk menacingly while dragging another human behind in her wake, and Hecate silently cursed her reliance on her sharp movements and looks to silence students. The effect was quite ruined now. 

“Mildred Hubble. Maud Spellbody. Enid Nightshade. Ethel Hallow. Why am I not surprised to find you four at the center of catastrophe?” She barely kept the _again_ from falling from her lips, but she hoped they could read it in the arch of her eyebrow. She couldn’t cross her arms with one hand attached to Pippa’s to complete the effect, but she had so many years of practicing a stern look down her nose that it came at almost no effort at all.

“I wasn’t - we weren’t - I don’t -” “It was supposed to cheer!” “Ethel said” “I did _not_!” Four voices raise in cacophonous harmony, and Hecate was glad she only needed to raise one hand to stop it immediately. “One at a time. You, Hubble.”

To her credit, Mildred only glanced back at her compatriots once before swallowing and glancing up at Hecate. “It was only supposed to be a cheering potion, you know, to, um, ‘foster a good relationship between Cackle’s Academy and Pentangle’s’. Like Miss Cackle said. But only someone else got there first.” Hecate could read in the way the other girls’ eyes dart to Ethel that she was the purported “someone.” 

And by the way Ethel chimed in, “it was only a _proper_ cheering spell; they obviously got it wrong.”

Behind her, Hecate could hear Pippa stifling laughter. Hecate supposed she should be glad Pippa wasn’t barging into the conversation, congratulating them all on their ingenuity and dedication to inter-school harmony or some twaddle like that. 

It’s not that she was _against_ more cooperation between the schools, especially Pippa’s. Only it always lead to situations like this, and it always came down to _her_ students. She wondered how it looked to Pippa, whose students likely adored her one and all. It’s hard not to, she thought, letting the accompanying grimace through and hoping the girls thought it was for them. 

“You will compile a list of ingredients you used - _both_ potions,” she added, as she saw Ethel’s mouth open in protest. “And you will submit it to me in the next twenty minutes if you do not want to repeat a year or worse.”

There truly was little more satisfying than watching spines go straight, voices raise in agreement despite the desire to argue lurking in their voices, and seeing students scamper off. She’d prefer it be in the pursuit of knowledge or excitement about a new ingredient or anything else, but in the end, she wasn’t picky. Pippa had her ways of teaching and she had her own.

“Did you really have to be so harsh?” Pippa was hovering over her shoulder to murmur in her ear, and Hecate could all but feel the desire to just rest her chin on Hecate’s shoulder. Even the thought of the action took her back, to their own years and study sessions, with Pippa over her shoulder giving suggestions as to what they could add or experiment with in spells or potions. Unlike then, she shook Pippa off even though it seemed as if even her own magic was screaming for the familiarity, for that further step in repairing their relationship. Hecate rolled her shoulders in another attempt to move Pippa from being so close and made to start another set of rounds around the hall.

“If I am not, how will they ever learn from their mistakes?” She could sense the response on Pippa’s lips, in the tension of her body through their hands and quickly continued before Pippa could cut in. “With any luck, it will simply be an excess of midnight moss, and the effects will wear off on their own.”

To her surprise, Pippa laughed. “I would have thought that it was because it all seemed too familiar.” There’s a squeeze, from her hand to Hecate’s, and Hecate wills away the desire to blush through willpower honed against the whetstone of students’ laughter. “You remember, that social fourth year where one of the upper-years bet that you couldn’t spike the punch with an undetectable potion?” 

She did, all too well. The social itself was a whirlwind of nerves, her heartbeat in her throat as the teachers had inspected the punch. It had had little to do with actual inebriation or rule-breaking and all to do with the thrill of discovering a new combination of ingredients, the way Pippa’s hair fell out of its bun when she had rolled across Hecate’s bed, groaning that they had looked over every book already, then the way she had tucked it behind her ear and leaned over, asking what if they put the frog’s ear in before they let it dry. It had been the two of them against the odds, her friendship with Pippa even more inexplicable, to the point that she could hardly believe it.

The teachers had been unable to detect anything amiss with the punch, but Hecate had been sure that the way she and Pippa had been huddled nearby, watching intently, would have given them away. She’d clutched tightly at Pippa’s hand, much the same way Pippa was doing to her hand now, and only breathing when the teachers had passed on to the next check.

She had used the recipe to devise a check-spell of her own when Miss Cackle had taken her on. She hadn’t given any thought to it until tonight when she’d seen Pippa cast a very similar spell to her own. One that also took into account minor alterations of ingredients. 

“I do remember,” she replied, her voice soft. She scowled reflexively, afraid that the almost-whisper had given away too much. In return, she got a squeeze to their joined hands. In an impulse, she tugged lightly on Pippa’s hand, moving them to an alcove to the side of the food tables. Then, turning so that she faced Pippa fully, she felt her expression soften as well. “You were always the more inventive one when it came to potions.”

“But without you, it wouldn’t have been any fun,” Pippa responded with a smile, reaching up to catch Hecate’s other hand. Pippa was the only one who had ever called her fun, and Hecate hadn’t realized how much she had missed it, had missed laughing and letting herself make mistakes. Had missed having a friend.

Had missed Pippa. 

“You’re the only one I’d ever want to experiment with, Pipsqueak.” Hecate kept her voiced pitched so that only Pippa would hear - it would be inappropriate if any of the students overheard, of course, but more than that, she wanted to keep this moment between Pippa and herself. Had only ever shown this side of herself to Pippa.

She wondered if things would have been different if she hadn’t been so scared back then. Scared of her own feelings, scared of how valued she felt in Pippa’s eyes. Scared of losing Pippa’s friendship, of seeing that warmth turn to disdain, or worse, pity, as it so surely would as they grew up and Pippa realized how awkward Hecate was, or figured out Hecate’s true feelings for her. So she’d missed the waterskiing broom competition, thinking it was better to protect her own heart, to yank the whole painful thing up at the root and hope it healed.

Looking into Pippa’s eyes now, she wondered how she could have gotten it all so wrong. She mourns, briefly, for all the years she could have spent with Pippa looking at her like this, eyes soft and smile fond, with the right side just a tad more upturned than the left. “I know that smile - it means you are thinking of something mischievous.”

Pippa laughed, and Hecate welcomed it, no longer letting it grate on the bitterness of knowing it would never be for her again. “Only that the students are likely looking for us and would see if I kissed you right here and now.”

Hecate could feel her cheeks flush and flame, and she was quite glad she was angled with her back to most of the students. “Oh.”

An uncertain look entered Pippa’s eyes, and Hecate cringed. “Though I wish you would,” she amended, leaning in as Pippa did, to brush their lips together softly and quickly, peering around for any nearby students.

“I’m sorry,” they both started at once, and Hecate found herself laughing, something she found she missed.

“I missed you,” she said, all but blurting it out. “Oh, Pipsqueak, I missed you so much, but I was afraid of driving you away and ruining what we had and I did it anyway, and I’m sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

Pippa smiled, and Hecate could feel the warmth of it flow through her as Pippa leaned in to whisper against her lips, “I think I can do rather more than that.”

This time, their kiss was rather more heated. It took Hecate a full minute to realize that they had not moved far out of sight of the students and still could be discovered at any time, and secondly, that her hands, both of them, were buried in Pippa’s curls, a feat that should have proven impossible, until she felt both of Pippa’s hands on her shoulders.

“Broken by a kiss,” Pippa said with a smile, and Hecate would not let herself think of the typical modifier for that kiss, not yet.

Instead, she simply smiled back and said, “that, or the excess midnight moss finally wore off.”

Pippa rolled her eyes. “We shall simply have to train you to be more romantic, dear Hiccup.”

Helpless in the face of Pippa’s smile, Hecate could only respond, “yes, we shall.”

She took Pippa’s hand again and kissed it. “Now, I do believe we have a dance to chaperone, lest the students try another ill-thought-out prank.”

“Later, then,” Pippa returned with a wink and a squeeze to Hecate’s hand. It was a promise she was more than looking forward to.


End file.
